Friday, 21 February 2014

Measuring up the competition

The Access to Understanding science-writing
competition 2014 attracted over 260 entrants. As an international competition we
were thrilled to receive entries from 14 different countries. This map
pinpoints the different cities around the world from which we received entries.

Over 80% of our entrants were from the United Kingdom- with
entries coming from as far north as Aberdeen. This map highlights the range of
entrants from throughout the nation.

There were nearly 4 times as many PhD students (205) than
post-doctoral researchers (57) who entered this year. This is an almost identical
proportion to last year’s entrants.

Are women more interested in science communication? The
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reported that in 2012/2013 there were
nearly equal numbers of males and females who graduated with postgraduate
science degrees across the UK (43,455 females and 45,150 males).
Our entrants did not reflect this, nor the current issue around women in science positions, as we had more than double the
number of female entrants relative to male entrants:

Our entrants also really liked leaving things to the last
moment! We received 69% of our entries during the last 24 hours of the
competition, and 20% of our entries in the final hour.

The Access to
Understanding 2014 winner will be announced at the awards ceremony held at
The British Library on 24 March 2014. Book your free ticket online here. Be sure to check back after the
ceremony to access the competition programme which will feature the 10
shortlisted entries, our 3 prize winners, these statistics and more!

Stay tuned to the blog for an exciting update about our
competition coming soon!

This post is by Rebecca Withers (Science Engagement Intern for Europe PMC).To stay up-to-date with Europe PMC news you can also follow us on Twitter @EuropePMC_news